Lebanese mufti Abdellatif Deriane, embracing FPM leader Gebran Bassil, Dec. 3, 2024. (Credit: @Gebran_Bassil/X)
The leader of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), MP Gebran Bassil, warned on Tuesday from Dar al-Fatwa against linking the election of a new Lebanese president (overdue for more than two years) to developments in the region, as Lebanon emerges from 14 months of war between Hezbollah and Israel, while the conflict between the regime and rebels in Syria has flared up again.
Lebanon has been without a president since the end of Michel Aoun's term in October 2022. A parliamentary session for the presidential election has been set for Jan. 9. This will be the 13th session devoted to the election of a head of state, and the first since June 14, 2023, when no camp has so far been able to secure a majority of votes for its candidate. Hezbollah and its allies are backing the candidacy of Marada leader Sleiman Frangieh, while the opposition, which includes the FPM, a former ally of the Shiite party, is supporting the name of former minister Jihad Azour.
After a meeting with the Mufti of the Republic Abdellatif Deriane, spiritual leader of the Sunni community in Lebanon, Bassil said he was launching a “movement” to revive the issue of the presidential election, wishing to “dialogue with all parties.” Hoping that war would not resume between Hezbollah and the Israeli army, between whom a cease-fire agreement was reached on Nov. 27, he asserted that “a president and a government in office are needed to save the country.”
“We are trying to extend national solidarity among the Lebanese and translate it into an agreement on the election of a president,” said the MP from Batroun. He added that “it is not permissible to link the right of the Lebanese to elect a president to events in the region.”